February Update - Malaysia Tropical Forest Project
Added to website: 16 March 2005
Project Brief
Aim
The Malaysia Tropical Forest Conservation Project is a collaborative project between Coral Cay Conservation and the Department of Wildlife and National Parks. The aim of the project is to conduct rapid biodiversity assessments of different habitats within Setiu Wetlands, in order to compile a detailed species list and highlight the species distributions within this area.
Location
The project moved from the Perhentian Islands to Kampung Betang Lintang, Terengganu, on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia in October.
CCC Partners
CCC is working in partnership with the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Peninsular Malaysia) and Wild Asia.
Terrestrial Science Programme
Baseline Surveys
It has been a busy month of surveying at the Setiu wetland site. The second week in February was spent camping in an area of Peat Swamp forest about 10Km South of Beting Litang. The forest was teeming with life, and both mist netting and mammal trapping proved very fruitful. We caught two birds new to our species list, namely a White-rumped Shama (which is commonly captured as a cage bird) and a Striped Tit-babbler, both of which were a delight to handle and photograph. On the same night we caught 2 bats (both of which were also new to our lists), an Intermediate Horseshoe Bat (our first insectivorous bat - and to be honest, not the prettiest of creatures!) and a Spotted-winged Fruit Bat. On the non-volant mammal front, rats were prolific throughout the forest, typically with 4 or 5 being found in the traps each morning, along with several Common Tree Shrews. A troop of Long-tailed Macaque monkeys were spotted near the camp site also.
Our second camp was spent in a lovely area of Casaurina forest (which almost resembled a Polish alpine forest!) on a very narrow spit of land near Penarick, between the sea and the lagoon - in places this was only tens of metres wide! This unique and ever changing area of land (due to constant erosion resulting from its exposed position on the coast) supported a very interesting fauna, particularly with respects to the birds. Mist netting was thus quite successful here, and included the capture of a very beautiful (but not very impressed!) Black-capped Kingfisher.
Two exciting new sites were recceed in preparation for camps in the near future - firstly Bintang Hill, a large hill covered in some nice lowland tropical forest; secondly Tasik Borumbak, another wetland site comprising of mangrove, forest and lake habitats, so hopefully the faunal diversity here will reflect this.
Interesting / Unusual Sightings
A Common Palm Civet was spotted by torchlight one evening during mist netting at the Casaurina forest - it was very exciting to encounter such an attractive natural predator in the area.
A very large Water Monitor Lizard, of about 1.5m long, paid us a visit in the camp one afternoon, probably intent on rummaging through our rubbish bags - but to no avail, as it was inadvertently chased off due to the slight overexcitement of ourselves at seeing it at such close proximity!
The Butterfly Lizards were out in force again, and seem to be even bigger and brighter than ever - now we understand why they acquired such a name!
Environmental Awareness
Capacity Building/Training of Local Counterparts
The school visits have continued with great success - the children are constantly buzzing with excitement at the prospect of our weekly visits. Our aim is to introduce them to the local flora and fauna as well as the basics of conservation, although this is of course made more of a challenge by the language barrier! Their English is ever-improving however, and our Malay also (although rather more slowly!), and with the aid of puppets and pictures they are becoming very enthusiastic about what they are learning.
